My reaction of Chapter 5 of Growing Up Digital

I seriously think every teacher should read this book. The entire 5th chapter focoused on teaching methods for the Net Generation and how teachers and schools today can improve students education for the better. I thought Chapter 5 was really cool and informative, and gave alot of insight. I found myself saying inside my head alot, "yes! This guy is so right." I agreed with so much that he said. Tapscott talks about how the ecucation system is 1oo years behind in some areas, and talks about how schools today should focous on modern day teaching methods. He says that the education system should focus on the student, rather than the teacher, and that teachers should interact, not lecture. He also says teachers should encourage students to collaborate , and on page thirteen he says "Schools should be places to learn, not to teach."I completly agree with this! Another thing he talks about is what WE the students want. He says on page 5 that "Kids who have grown up digital expect to talk back, to have conversation." he also says, we "want education to be relevant to the real world," and that "They," meaning us, the students and the Net Gen, "want it to be interesting and fun." He goes into describing how students today get really bored with school becaue alot of teachers just make us sit down and lecture us, not bothering to interact or conversate with us. He's pretty much saying that teachers these days need to keep up with our faster paced generation somewhat. He says that we expect more and that "The Net Gen wants to interact while learning". This is very true. If more teachers were interactive and made more use of their teaching time, i think more students would learn more and enjoy school way better. I think that Tapscott nails this topic. It's true and he's obviously done his research.

Reaction to Growing Up Digital

I thought this was a really interesting thing to read. It was very cool to see what someone (namely an adult) thought about OUR generation for once. It was even cooler to find out this writer had good things to say rather than bad. We usually hear alot about the bad things our teen generation has to offer, but this book focoused on the good things, and valued our abilities with internet and technology. I thought it was funny when the author described how adults acted when technology and computers first were introduced. The author told some crazy stories about people not knowing how to properly control a mouse, thinking they could use White-Out to erase files on disks, and 'copying' and disk using a photocopy machine! At that time, i'm sure it wasn't as funny, but to me, it was hilarious. Very few young people in this highschool would be confused if someone asked them to do somthing using a computer or the internet. I thought that the author was right when he said that for our generation 'Technology is like breathing'. We don't question technology. We just understand it. The writer also said something about older generations, if they got a new gadget they would get out the manual to see how to use it, while our generation would just USE it. We figure it out ourselves and thats how we learn. It was refreshing to know that theres a book like this out there encouraging our generation rather than putting it down.